A Dialogue with a Saudi Muslim (4)

• Part One, which has a brief Introduction
• Part Two
• Part Three

By way of reminder, Soliman al-Buthe (or al-Buthi) wrote an Open Letter to Congress in 2005. Then he initiated a dialogue with me, so we decided on this sequence.

1. In 2005, I commented and asked questions about the Open Letter (in blue).

2. In that same year, months later, Mr. al-Buthe answered my questions and challenged me on various issues (in green). He sought the advice of Saudi scholars, as well.

3. Finally, in 2006, I reply to his challenges and questions (in black). Sometimes I embed this part in our 2005 dialogue. I too receive help from colleagues.

2005 Open Letter to Congress (continued):

JA: The reason I ask about the percentage of students who choose Islamic Studies or other religious majors is the high unemployment and crime rates in your country. John R. Bradbury worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia for more than two years, writing for various western publications. In his book, Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis, he provides statistics for the rise. He writes:

The statistics available are breathtaking. A 2003 report by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, for example, said that crime among young jobless Saudis rose 320 percent between 1990 and 1996, and is expected to increase an additional 136 percent by 2005. More than 60 percent of Saudis are under 21, and the kingdom’s population growth rate is roughly 4 percent—one of the highest in the world . . . . (p. 142)

Thus, the crime rate increases, despite the harsh punishments your legal system regularly metes out, such as chopping off heads. Bradbury recounts some episodes of public beheadings. In 2003, for example, more than 50 took place for everyone to see (p. 144). Academic programs covering economics and the social sciences may help the problem of crime. I read, above, and elsewhere that you have such programs, so this is good.

We have invited a friend and colleague, originally from Saudi Arabia, to review my response. He adds this to our dialogue:

The Saudi Government will allow westerners who are converts to attend the Islamic University in Mecca or Medina to earn a degree for Islamic studies. The only reason they allow them to do so is to help them become Imams and to use them to convert others to Islam. They would have never allowed any westerner who is not Muslim to attend these Islamic universities because they are in holy places / cities and only Muslims are allowed access to these places.

These days, from my conversations with my family and friends, the Saudi government is not allowing any non-Saudis to attend their universities, period. They may have some very few exceptions - but never for medicine or engineering. This process is part of what the government of Saudi Arabia calls the Saudization. Also, non-Saudis, even if they are Muslims, are not allowed to own any property (e.g. land or homes) or businesses. They must have the property or the business in a Saudi partner’s name, who is called a sponsor.

The point that this Saudi is making, I believe, is that his nation closes the door on an even exchange of ideas, to help solve his nation’s problems. America and other free societies invite and give permission to hundreds of thousands of students from all countries, cultures and religions to come and study in their universities, often even providing grants and scholarships for them. It allows fair partnership in businesses with foreigners. Why is Saudi Arabia closing itself off from the free and even exchange of ideas and partnership in business?

As for the Madrassas and violence, please click on this report, which balances out your positive link.

JA: I am confused about something. You say in your Open Letter, which you initiated to the American Congress, that Saudi Arabia is compatible with modernity (your word). Then, when I bring up the word "modernity," you talk about "cultural prejudice" and the "wholesale adoption of Western modernity as it relates to a promiscuous freedom." No one said anything about adopting the extremes or the vices in the West. I agree that the West has gone too far in that regard. But can you not see that Saudi Arabia has let the pendulum swing too far to the other extreme—to the far side of repression, such as executing or flogging or imprisoning sexual sinners (read about this excess here and here)?

JA: You report that the reason for prohibiting women from driving cars is to separate the sexes because they may commit sexual sin and be severely punished. In Part Two I have already noted that homosexuality takes place in your country, so how does one fix that problem? By forbidding men from driving? I am not being facetious. It seems that the reason offered by the religious scholars for prohibiting women does not work entirely. It is a sad fact that humans will commit sexual sin, no matter how much they are smothered by rules and religious police.

Bradbury reports in his book (cited above) that the separation of the sexes creates the (unintended) backlash of men seeking comfort and sexual gratification from other men, and women from other women.

So malls in Jeddah, as well as in Riyadh and Dammam, have predictably become the preferred haunts of another group: male seeking sex with other males. Unlike the boys and girls seeking to mix, they do not have to hide their intentions. Indeed, they stroll certain of the malls and supermarkets openly making passes at each other. They are dressed in variations on Western fashion that would, in America, be considered outrageously queer, but in Saudi Arabia raise eyebrows only among those who insist on "Islamic"—that is, Bedouin—dress at all times. These young men openly cruise, often exchanging comments in loud voices with their friends when a desirable object comes into view. (p. 154)

Additionally, Bradbury reports that gay websites have exploded:

The number of gay-themed Saudi websites especially has exploded in recent years. Some of these sites are blocked by those responsible for censoring the Internet, but software to avoid the blocks is easily purchased in local markets. Most sites exist for one reason only: to facilitate meet-ups. Even gay pornography is freely available to anyone who has a satellite dish in their bedroom, which is to say all middle-class Saudi boys. (p. 155).

He goes on to report that lesbians also seek their own encounters and can easily do so because of the segregation of the sexes (pp. 162-65).

To return to the specific issue of driving, why do women have to be restricted from this privilege completely? Why not permit the women who want to drive to enjoy this privilege at least one day a week? There is a middle ground somewhere.

Next, it may be true that "few Saudi women even want to drive." But here are the few. This news report by Faiza Saleh Ambah offers these few a voice. Did Karen Hughes meet with them?

Inside a rented hall on the outskirts of the Saudi capital, women slip on T-shirts over their silk and cotton blouses. "Yes to the empowerment of women," it reads. Nov. 6, 1990, is printed in red under tire tracks.

About 20 women have gathered privately here for their annual reunion to mark their defiance 15 years ago of this conservative kingdom's ban on female drivers.

Spurred by the Gulf War and the sight of female American GIs driving in Saudi Arabia, the group took to the road. They traveled the streets of Riyadh before being surrounded by curious onlookers and stopped by traffic cops, who took them into custody. They were released only after their male guardians signed statements that they would not drive again.

The women, many of whom are professors, had been prepared for a reprimand from the government, even some jail time. But it was the reaction of their students, their extended families, and many acquaintances that surprised them.

After the protest, thousands of leaflets with their names and their husbands' names - with "whores" and "pimps" scrawled next to them - circulated around the city. They were suspended from jobs, had passports confiscated, and were told not to speak to the press.

Overnight, they became pariahs.

About a year after the protest, they returned to work and received their passports. But they were kept under surveillance and passed over for promotions.

But now, due to the courage of one member of Saudi Arabia's consultative Shura Council, a new reform-minded king, and a society forced into open debate following violence linked to Muslim extremists, the subject is once again taking center stage.

And the women have decided to break their silence.

The report continues by saying that most Saudi women view driving as an imitation of the decadent West. Again, this opinion lets the pendulum swing too far to the other extreme of suppression.

Here is a very short excerpt from an interview with a member of the Saudi Shura Council Muhammad Aal Zulfa, which aired on Al-'Arabiya TV on June 8, 2005. He would let his wife and daughter drive.

To wrap up this part of my reply, humans of both sexes need freedom. This article says that Bahrain, an island and independent state that is connected to Saudi Arabia by a bridge, provides a "breathing lung" for Saudis because this Islamic island allows people to do as they want. The words "breathing lung" mean that Saudi Arabia suffocates people. On the weekends an average of 40,000 cars line up to cross the bridge.

Surely there is a middle path between decadence and repression of freedom.

JA: My comment here is brief, coming in three parts.

First, I am encouraged about your statement that there is nothing in Islam which "allows men but not women to vote." But I am unclear about the "infrastructure that would be required." I hope it gets ready for the next elections.

Second, it is true that for many decades America did not allow women to vote, but we have corrected the problem at the beginning of the twentieth century, passing the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, which opened the door to this basic right. Our nation was one of the first. France did not open the voting booth to women until after the Second World War.

Third, it is true, sadly, that black Americans were disenfranchised. But we have corrected the problem with the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The world awaits Saudi Arabia to correct its own problems. This is why, as noted in my first point in this section, that I am encouraged by your words: "Many believe that this restriction will be lifted in the future, and perhaps in the very near future." I hope such freedom happens soon, in the near future.

I believe, from a simple study of history, that it is impossible to smother freedom in the human heart. Eventually freedom will break out of any cage. Therefore, it is better, don’t you think, to go with the flow of freedom without adopting the extreme of promiscuity and licentiousness?

JA: My comments come in three numbered points. I omit a discussion of your third reply, though I allude to it in my point no. two and my discussion of Christianity today.

(1) For your first point you say:

First, Islam has no problem with science; it was in the Muslim world that science first flourished, and it was upon that basis that Europeans built their science.

This is a common belief in the Muslim world, and even some Westerners perpetuate it. But it needs to be balanced out.

Alvin J. Schmidt, in The Great Divide (Regina Orthodox Press, 2004), pp. 200-01, summarizes his findings in Chapter 8, which covers science. He corrects two popular misconceptions: the West is heavily indebted to Islam; and the church always stood in the way of scientific advancement.

Starting off, he concedes that some noteworthy natural philosophers (pre-scientists) lived in the Islamic empire. But they stand on the shoulders of Greeks, who were not completely wrong about some things.

Although Islam produced some noteworthy natural philosophers among the Arabs [Avicenna (980-1037); Averroes (1126-1198); Jabir Ibn Hayyan (c. 760-815); al-Kindi (813-880); and al-Razi, (c. 865-925)], they never attained the intellectual stature of the Greeks . . . In the words of one historian of science, "The legacy of the Islamic world in medicine and natural science is the legacy of Greece, increased by many additions, mostly practical" . . . .

Then Schmidt points out that the science we know today began in the thirteenth century, long after science stalled under Islam. Also, it was the church that was a major patron of scientific learning.

It also needs to be noted that although Islam’s natural philosophers produced some noteworthy works in physiology and medicine from about the ninth through the 11^th century, Islamic medicine and science came to a standstill, about 1100 . . . . It was Christianity, not Islam, which provided the necessary presupposition, the motivation, and the men who launched modern science. Thus, from the 13^th century on, Islam’s influence in science, if one can call it science [because the inductive method, on which science so heavily depends, rises in the 13^th century], in contrast to Christianity’s influence, has been conspicuously lagging. In support of this claim, Lindberg in his The Beginning of Western Science (1992), says that in regard to the study of nature, "the church was one of the major patrons—perhaps the major patron—of scientific learning."

Schmidt ends with a short list of groundbreaking western discoveries fostered by Christianity, and bypassing Islam that seems to have bogged down in an exclusive search for religious truth and that seems largely to have ignored scientific truth. Western science was not built on the basis of Islamic "science," a misnomer in the first place, because, as noted, science did not really begin until the thirteenth century. Before then, it may be called a "proto-science," which is built on Greek "proto-science."

Finally, it is well to remember that Muslims discovered no scientific laws, such as Kepler’s three laws in astronomy, Newton’s law of gravity, Pascal’s law of liquid measure, Ohm’s law in the field of electricity, Boyle’s law in chemistry, Kelvin’s absolute zero, Faraday’s electromagnetic induction, Dalton’s atomic weight, Lavoisier’s law of conservation of energy, or Mendel’s law pertaining to heredity. Nor did any Muslim discover bacteria, introduce chloroform, inoculate against disease, discover circulation of the blood, introduce antiseptics, or encourage the dissecting of human cadavers. These and other great moments in science were by-products of Christianity’s influence, all outside of the context of any Islamic influence and motivation . . . .

Finally, the next scholar, after quoting Westerners who put down their own western intellectual history and who exalt Islamic intellectual history to high heaven, clarifies matters. He says that Muslims translated insignificant ancient texts and that Christendom already had the important ones. He says in the fourth paragraph, below, that Islam was caught up in Neoplatonism, a poor reflection of Plato, and what philosophy did exist in Islam rose higher than the Quran. So Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes believed.

So the great rescue of Greek philosophy by translation into Arabic turns out to mean no rescue of Plato and the transmission of Latin translations of Arabic translations of Greek texts of Aristotle, either directly or more often via Syriac or Hebrew, to a Christendom that already had the Greek texts and had already translated most of them into Latin, with almost all of the work of translation from any of these languages into any other having been done by Christians and Jews and none of it by Muslims.

But if Islamic scholars did not actually translate ancient Greece’s natural philosophy from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin, did not actually rescue Plato and Aristotle from oblivion, and did not actually ignite the Renaissance with them, didn’t they create a vibrant and superior philosophy?

Were not Avicenna and Averroes great? Great they were, and philosophers too, but not exactly Islamic ones.

Islamic philosophy is a misnomer; at least, what we in the West think of as Islamic philosophy is. It is not Islamic in the sense of being rooted in Islam or even in the weaker sense of being melded to it. It is based rather on those vaunted translations from Greek and has a higher allegiance to Neoplatonism than to Islam. It considered philosophy the highest expression of truth, available only to the wisest, and Islam a lower expression suitable for the masses. It believed that the Koran is temporal, not eternal, and that God knows only universals, not particulars. In short, it was in opposition to what we and most Muslims think of as Islam. (Source, emphasis original; this article also cites Westerners putting down their own tradition and exalting Islam. But the article also balances out the picture)

(2) In your second point you write:

Second, the Sheikh did not mention anything about orbiting. He was only criticizing the belief that the sun is stationary because there is a verse in the Qur’an which says that it "runs." We now know that the whole solar system moves around the Galaxy and that the Galaxy itself is traveling through space. Sheikh Abd-Aziz Ibn Baz was not a scientist, and he did not claim the doctrinal infallibility of a pope; he was simply expressing a view in which he honestly believed.

I have not read Sheikh Ibn Baz’s article, but this is an excerpt taken from Sandra Mackey, The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, updated edition (Norton, 2002), p. 98. Her book is generally sympathetic of your country.

In an essay written to refute the heresy of the theory of the solar system taught at Riyadh University, [Ibn] Baz said:

Hence I say the Holy Koran, the Prophet’s teaching, the majority of Islamic scientists, and the actual fact prove that the sun is running in its orbit, as Almighty God ordained, and that the earth is fixed and stable, spread out by God for his mankind and made a bed and cradle for them, fixed down firmly by mountains, lest it shake.

This quotation does discuss the sun orbiting. It also says that the earth is fixed, so it is difficult to understand how your explanation of the sun and its system moving in the galaxy works, unless the moving solar system leaves the stationary earth behind.

Perhaps the Sheikh was referring to a revelation in the Quran that says that the sun sets in a muddy spring. One of God’s servants of long ago actually witnessed this, says the Islamic holy book. Sura (Chapter) 18:86 says:

. . . When he reached the setting-place of the sun, he [Dhu’l-Qarneyn] found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We [Allah] said: O Dhu'l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness. (Pickthall)

This researcher quotes the hadiths and commentators:

. . . All the scholars such as the Baydawi, Jalalan, and Zamakhshari confirm it. The Zamakhshari remarks in his book, "the Kash-shaf",

"Abu Dharr (one of Muhammad’s close companions) was with Muhammad during the sunset. Muhammad asked him: ‘Do you know, O Abu Dharr where this sets?’ He answered: ‘God and His apostle know better.’ Muhammad said: ‘It sets in a spring of slimy water"’ (3rd Edition, Volume 2 p. 743, 1987).

In his book, "The Lights of Revelation" (p. 399), the Baydawi indicates,

"The sun sets in a slimy spring; that is, a well which contains mud. Some of the readers of the Qur’an read it, ‘...a hot spring’, thus the spring combines the two descriptions. It was said that Ibn ’Abbas found Mu’awiya reading it (as) hot. He told him, ‘It is muddy.’ Mu’awiya sent to Ka’b al-Ahbar and asked him, ‘Where does the sun set?’ He said in water and mud and there were some people. So he agreed with the statement of ibn al-’Abbas. And there was a man who composed a few verses of poetry about the setting of the sun in the slimy spring." 

The Jalalan (p. 251) says that the setting of the sun is in a well which contains a murky mud. We found the same interpretation and text in the Tabari’s commentaries (p. 339) as well as in "Concise Interpretation of the Tabari" (p. 19 of part 2) in which he remarks that the well in which the sun sets "contains lime and murky mud". (Source)

Thus, this revelation in Sura 18:86 does not describe a one-time miracle (cf. Joshua 10:12-15). It seems to be treated as a scientific fact, as if the sun settles in slimy mud every day, which can be witnessed with our own eyes, after we walk to where the sun sets. Also, this goes far out and beyond your and your colleagues’ explanation that the solar system moves around in our galaxy.

Still under your point two, you write:

. . . Although [Sheikh Abd-Aziz Ibn Baz] was a great religious teacher, Islam recognizes that no man can have the infallibility popes still today claim. Accordingly, Ibn Baz could not force his view on all Muslims – he didn't even think about trying to start an inquisition against the many who differed with him. In the face of Ibn Baz’s statement, what should we Muslims have done – prevented him from expressing a view simply because we believed it erroneous?

Specifically, you write that Ibn Baz "did not even think about trying to start an inquisition against many who differed with him." If I understand this comment, you may be implying that the popes started inquisitions, and this is worse than Ibn Baz’s beliefs. In reply, this is a common and mistaken strategy chosen by Muslim missionaries. They frequently reference misguided and violent events hundreds of years ago, and even a thousand years ago, that the church committed. However, Christians today do not engage in any inquisitions. Christians today do not see this entire era of church history as authoritative, as if we should bring forward all of its policies and practices in such matters. The church has reformed. That is, no Protestant pastor or Catholic priest today says we should attack Christians or atheists for holding views contrary to the Bible or church teachings, particularly not in scientific disputes. However, Islam persecutes and harasses nonconformist scholars often enough, today, not only a thousand or more years ago. Thus, no one demands, as you say in your last sentence in the excerpt, that Muslims should have prevented the Sheikh, highly positioned at an accredited university, from expressing his conservative views among many strict Quran-believing Muslims or anyone else.

In any case, I am pleased to read your reply that says Saudi universities disagree with the Sheikh, who was highly positioned at an accredited and reputable university, and call his view erroneous. But the real problem lies with the Quran itself.

Your final comment in your second point says:

Addressing the Western theologians’ problems with science, many Christian scholars today emphatically oppose Darwinism and believe that creationism should be taught in school. (Indeed, your President Bush advocates teaching "Intelligent Design" – a poor cousin of creationism – in public schools!) How should those people be answered?

I confess that your comment here disappoints me. This is one subject on which Christians and Muslims could work together. In any case, you call Intelligent Design "a poor cousin of creationism." Does this imply that creationism is the privileged first-born son? Do you prefer strict creationism? It seems that Intelligent Design can only help Islamic theology in the world of modern science, unless you hold to a literal six-day creation.

Next, maybe a few Christian scholars want creationism taught in public schools, but most such scholars prefer that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution, both as theories. This Jewish scholar, for example, who rejects Intelligent Design, says that it should still be taught in our schools:

Of the many reasons why intelligent design – an argument I reject – ought to be taught alongside evolution in our public schools, perhaps none is more compelling than the ignorance and demagoguery which is evident in our current national debate over the issue. Below are four myths you frequently come across while reading the political literature on the subject, followed by the facts. (Source)

Personally, I do not worry about the issue of teaching Intelligent Design in the public schools, one way or the other.

For more challenges to science in the Quran, please go to this webpage. I especially recommend this scholar. The Saudi Christian adds: "It should be mentioned that all of the so-called scientific evidence in the Quran is based on visible evidence we can see with our own eyes, not on divine knowledge." This lengthy review of a debate between the scholar previously linked and a well-known Muslim speaker brings out this fact in more detail.

(3) Finally, your fourth point says:

Fourth, George Washington is said to have been one of those who believed that the earth is flat, but famous Muslim scholars like Ibn Hazm and Ibn Taymiya who lived centuries before him knew that the earth is spherical.

In reply, it may be true that these two Muslim scholars knew that the earth is spherical, but this was widely known, long before Islam came on the scene.

It was widely known [before Aristotle’s time in the fourth century BC] that the earth was spherical, for example from the shadow of the earth which is cast upon the surface of the moon during lunar eclipses . . . (Peter Whitfield, Landmarks in Western Science, Routledge, 1999, p. 33).

In fact, at least one Greek natural philosopher understood that the sun is the center of the cosmos.

A particular fame however is attached to one of [the Hellenistic scientists], Aristarchus of Samos (flourished 280 BC), for his suggestion that the Sun and not the earth was the centre of cosmos . . . But in proposing a moving earth, Aristarchus was violating all accepted wisdom, and indeed the evidence of our own senses. (Whitfield, p. 42)

As noted in my (long) first reply in this section, the Medieval church followed Aristotle too closely as he envisioned a geocentric universe. But other Greeks knew better, and eventually Copernicus in the sixteenth century broke away from the received tradition and supported a solar-centered universe.

Also, there is a difference between George Washington and Sheikh Ibn Baz. The former was a general and the first President, who lived in the eighteenth century. The latter was an Islamic scholar, highly placed at a university and the religious hierarchy, who lived in the twentieth century and who had access to reports (if only auditory) about humans landing on the moon. He benefited from advances in astronomy and rocket science in a way that President Washington could not—assuming that he really did believe that the earth was flat.

Finally, you link to information about the Flat Earth Society. We live in a free country, so people may put up any website or form any society that they want, without fear of harassment. But this society is not part of an accredited university or college or research lab recognized by anyone of reputation, nor is it a member of any respectable scientific community or organization. On the other hand, Sheikh Ibn Baz, as noted, was deeply entrenched in the religious establishment and in an accredited university in Saudi Arabia.

See this quick biography about Ibn Baz, and this short entry on Salafi / Wahhabi literalism.

Summary

Mr. al-Buthi, I again quote two paragraphs from Bradbury’s book, cited above.

This one describes the astronomical rise in crimes in the land of the Two Holy Mosques, where Islamic punishments are carried out physically and swiftly:

The statistics available are breathtaking. A 2003 report by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, for example said that crime among young jobless Saudis rose 320 percent between 1990 and 1996, and is expected to increase an additional 136 percent by 2005. More than 60 percent of Saudis are under 21, and the kingdom’s population growth rate is roughly 4 percent—one of the highest in the world . . . . (p. 142)

The next quotation describes how segregating the sexes leads to increased homosexual encounters:

So malls in Jeddah, as well as in Riyadh and Dammam, have predictably become the preferred haunts of another group: male seeking sex with other males. Unlike the boys and girls seeking to mix, they do not have to hide their intentions. Indeed, they stroll certain of the malls and supermarkets openly making passes at each other. They are dressed in variations on Western fashion that would, in America, be considered outrageously queer, but in Saudi Arabia raise eyebrows only among those who insist on "Islamic"—that is, Bedouin—dress at all times. These young men openly cruise, often exchanging comments in loud voices with their friends when a desirable object comes into view. (p. 154)

What about the US?

As for crime, this line graph on a short page at the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that violent crimes (e.g. homicide, rape, assaults, robbery) in America have decreased dramatically since 1994 to 2003. Next, this line graph, also found at the BJS, depicts a dramatic drop in property crime (burglary, theft, and car theft) from 1994, though the rate has leveled off since 2002.

But what is the point of placing these two line graphs here? To boast that America has reached sinless perfection and has no room for improvement? No. Maybe the crime rate will increase (God forbid) in the next decade (or go down). The point is this: though many factors contribute to a drop in crime rates (or their rise), it is possible to see such a decrease without Islamic law. Other, less brutal, methods can be applied in order to lower crime and enhance the quality of life.

As for the homosexual agenda, it is true that it is strong and vocal. But we have a political system that permits them to express themselves. They enjoy the right to form coalitions. How has repression stopped gays in Saudi Arabia? The authorities may have silenced their political voice (so far), but their practice? Repression has not stopped this, and never will.

I frequently read Muslim missionary outreach websites that assert that Islam cures society’s ills and is much better than freedom in the West. We need Islamic law for our own good, even if we do not realize this or even if sharia is harsh and brutal. But this quick comparison of crime and of sexual preferences in Saudi Arabia and the US demonstrates that Islamic law is not necessarily superior. It does not solve problems as much as the outreach websites claim—not even close.

Mr. Al-Buthi, if you believe that I am picking on your country and bringing up issues that are none of my business, then please note that you say that your country is compatible with modernity. Also, you initiated the dialogue, so you opened the door.

To repeat, I am not saying that America has reached moral perfection. Instead, I am challenging the widespread belief that Islamic countries, even Saudi Arabia, are pure.

Continue with Part Five.

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